


If Only I...

by athersgeo



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Character Speculation, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:41:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/pseuds/athersgeo
Summary: All characters are not mine - all mistakes are.This is such an awesome book (I'm with you on Nezha coming back - it's my number one hope for book 2!)  and I had a fab time with your prompts. I hope you enjoy this!





	If Only I...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bittersnake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersnake/gifts).



> All characters are not mine - all mistakes are.
> 
> This is such an awesome book (I'm with you on Nezha coming back - it's my number one hope for book 2!) and I had a fab time with your prompts. I hope you enjoy this!

If Only I...

_If only I wasn't a jackass._

The thought would once upon a time have been very much a foreign thought to Yin Nezha, but a lot of things had changed. It had started at the end of their first year. The trials. Until that point he'd been secure in his belief that he was better than her. That he was smarter and fitter and more worthy.

And she'd beaten him.

Really beaten him. In the way that he'd beaten others.

It had taken most of their second year for him to comprehend how it could have happened. Self analysis was not something that had ever come easy to Nezha. But he'd finally got there. Reached the conclusion that for all his linage and inherited skills and teaching, he really wasn't better. They were just different.

He'd have liked to have put that idea to the test – to have offered her a chance to spar with him – but by that point she all but ignored him. She'd pledged Lore (that part he'd still been able to sneer about in their third year) and they moved on rapidly diverging paths.

And then things had all gone to shit.

The Federation had invaded again. The students and apprentices had been pressed into helping the defence of Sinegard. In the chaos of the attack, Nezha had found himself next to her. Then back to back, fighting together against the on-coming Federation troops. It had been both awesome and effective. They'd made a good team. No. A brilliant one. A team that they should have formed back in that all important first year.

A team that they might have formed, back then. If he hadn't been a jackass.

"How are you feeling?"

The medic pulled Nezha's attention outward once more. To the reality that was his current situation. Somehow, despite being morally wounded in the battle, he was now lying in a makeshift bed in what remained of the college's medical ward.

"Fine," he answered. Because it was true. Physically, he was fine.

It was clearly an answer that satisfied the medic, who performed a perfunctory wound check and then departed. Nezha sighed. He'd seen what Rin had done to the Federation general – he'd thought that would be his very last sight – but now that he was here, he wondered if, perhaps, she wasn't the only one with strange abilities.

Or maybe it was luck.

Maybe the wounds hadn't been as bad as he'd assumed. (That was clearly what the medics were assuming.)

Maybe Rin's flame had cauterised his injuries, preventing him from bleeding out. (Nezha didn't believe that for a second, but he'd heard someone – Master Jun, perhaps – moot it.)

The fact remained that he had, somehow, survived being fatally stabbed through the midsection. True, his spine was severed and he would never walk, much less fight, again, but he was still here and breathing.

He knew that she was still here too. Somewhere. Despite the fact that she'd effectively saved both the city and those defenders still living, the college and army authorities were treating Rin like she was some sort of criminal. Or worse. He'd overheard many snippets of discussion relating to her fate – from execution and banishment all the way up to and including forcing her into Chuluu Korikh (Master Jun, naturally). So much so that Nezha wished he was in a position to do something.

He was, after all, the heir of Dragon Province.

He was also stuck in this bed and being treated like an enfeebled cripple, which was infuriating. True, his body was infirm, but his mind was as sharp as it had ever been.

Nezha sighed. The other side of what he'd overheard was far more intriguing. Rin was a Speerly? How had she never said anything? How had she not used that as status? Those questions had obvious answers – answers he knew from their very first meetings. She hadn't known. She'd been a war orphan, taken in by the Fangs. No history. No knowledge.

A better question was how no-one at the college had suspected. Or maybe they had. Maybe that explained Master Jiang's interest in her, and Master Irjah. The only other student Jiang had entertained taking on as an apprentice, after all, was Altan – the supposed only surviving Speerly – and Irjah **had** taken Altan on.

"If I'm here much longer I'm sure I'll have developed a whole set of conspiracy theories," Nezha muttered aloud.

He needed to get out of this bed. He needed to regain his abilities. He needed...

Nezha smiled wryly to himself. The biggest thing he needed was to make amends with Rin.

At that thought, he felt a sudden tingle in previously senseless feet. Like an itch. Reflexively he tried to twitch his toes to relieve the feeling and, impossibly, saw the bedclothes twitch at foot level.

It was impossible.

Wasn't it?

~*~

_If only I had run faster._

Rin huddled at her post, keeping watch without really thinking about it. Her mind was back at the ambush, playing over events yet again. Nezha falling. The gas. Trying to go back. Altan stopping her. Seeing Nezha be carried off.

Had she really seen that?

Maybe she hadn't. But then again, once the gas had cleared, patrols had gone seeking survivors and hadn't found Nezha's body – and his had been one of the bodies they'd been explicitly looking for, thanks to Nezha's father. So maybe she had and that could mean nothing good at all.

A distant corner of her mind considered the fact she was so worried about his fate amusing in the extreme. Three years of hating one another. Three months, give or take a day, of being friends, or at least of being friendly comrades. Surely the former should out weight the latter – but it didn't. If anything, the latter made her long for a chance to redo her time. If she hadn't held that silly grudge. If he hadn't.

Could they have been friends?

Perhaps that would have been pushing it in their first year, so pitted against one another as they had been, but as second year and third year apprentices...

Rin sighed. 

Now she'd never know if they could have been true friends.

It was another thing the Federation had taken from her. Another thing on a list that was growing longer by the day. 

The first flames of true, genuine hate were kindling in her heart, thanks to that list. True, she'd always known that the Federation were the reason she had no true family, but now she knew the full extent. Knew, too, that as likely as not the Imperial forces she now fought for had played no small part in that loss. A small, almost unheard corner of her mind screamed to burn it all down here and now. Wipe both sides from the map in recompense.

It was a corner of her mind that she ignored.

Most of the time.

Movement below her post drew her attention outward once more. A Federation scout was flitting his way from shadow to shadow, drawing closer to their defensive line.

While she wasn't as good an archer as Qara, Rin was skilled enough for this task. She nocked an arrow to her bow and took aim.

A moment later and there was another dead man on her conscience.

One less soul to torment the city.

Did it make a difference to the war effort? Rin didn't know, but this was her duty and she'd continue to do it. She had no other choice.


End file.
